7 Ways To Prevent Your iPhone Charger Cable From Breaking Again And Again And Again...
Because nobody can afford to buy an iPhone cable every now and then…
By John Lim
The iPhone is one of the best smartphones around, there's no doubt about that.
BUT, the charger cable is far from the best. In fact, it's terrible as it splits and breaks wayyyyyy too easily.
Looks familiar?
It's almost as if these cables are made to be broken, so we have to keep buying new ones!
Annoyed by this all-too-familiar tragedy, we've rounded up a few simple ways to keep your iPhone charger cable from breaking:
1. Be careful how you coil it as knots might destroy the delicate wires in the cable
Just throwing the cable in your bag is likely to end up in a tangled mess, but tightly wrapping it around your hand and tying it in a knot isn't good for it either.
The delicate wires inside the cable get bent and crushed every time you do this, which ultimately leads to them separating and the cable working intermittently or not at all.
A better approach is to gently loop the cable on top of itself three or four times, then tuck each end into the loop. The cable is still easy to transport, but there's little change of it getting snagged or damaged in transit
2. Be careful of bends too! Pressure and tension is not good for the cable.
One of the most common causes of cable breakage is due to it being squashed and heavily bent by tension or pressure. The point where the plug connector meets the cable is the most likely place for it to fray.
Pay attention and make sure you do not apply to much tension and pressure to the charger. A little care goes a long way - by making sure, the cable has some slack, and isn't bending it way too much
3. Pay attention to how you connect and remove the cable
Very much like bending the cable, connecting and yanking on the cable, rather than gently pulling, can be another excellent way to damage it.
4. Use a spring from a pen to keep the cable intact
Open up a pen to get the spring inside (remember those Pilot mechanical pencils?). Next, just stretch out the spring and attach one end of it to the charger cable. Then, roll the spring onto the cable and slide it to the top, closest to the edge of the cable for optimum protection!
5. If you fancy something cuter - try out the paracord trick!
Get paracord, cut open and remove the white strand. Then melt the ends with a lighter to stop the cord from fraying. When you're done with that, weave the cord to the cable.
6. Still have some of that embroidery floss laying at home? Use them to reinforce the cable!
Get some embroidery floss, cut the floss so it's four times longer than your charger cable. Tie the floss to the end of the cable, and braid a bracelet around the cable to make for some pretty reinforcements. Bracelet for your iPhone cable charger, genius.
aplus.com
7. If you don't mind spending some extra cash, a reinforced charge cable would do the trick
Anodized aluminum heads for the connectors won't crush or break if accidentally stepped on, while a metal spring where the actual wire connects to the head reinforces the weakest link in that chain. On top of that, the entire flexible cable is covered with a woven plastic exoskeleton that should keep it safe if and when an office chair rolls over it, and prevent it from ever getting tangled up.
Interested? You can purchase one here.
gizmodo.com